Casual visitors to Ghent and bruges may see nothing of the melancholy that poets and painters have woven into them; they may see in them thriving commercial towns; but poets and painters have loved their legendary gloom.
"Life and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck"
Jethro Bithell
From 1477 till his flight from bruges to avoid arrest for debt in 1484, Mansion worked steadily by himself, and the total output of his press amounts to twenty-five French works and two in Latin.
"Fine Books"
Alfred W. Pollard
At a time when Europe had no such masses of happy people, joyous in their toil, Courtrai, Tournay, Ypres, Ghent, and bruges told what the blue flower of the flax had done for the country.
"Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks"
William Elliot Griffis